I feel like the abolition of parking requirements is a really instructive example of why developers often aren't all that useful for identifying pro-growth reform. 🧵

Unfunded IZ presupposes a permenant housing shortage: the moment rents fall too low to cross-subsidize the unfunded mandate, development stops until rents rise again. It's housing policy pseudoscience.

Toronto, as always, ruined this for everyone by asking for a bunch of extra tax powers, getting them, promptly cancelling the vehicle registration tax, then taking in money the land transfer tax in good times before complaining about its volatility when tides turned. Then asking for more tax powers.

with so much transit a new mixed use neighbourhood would be good

It’s wild how the G&M’s position on housing has shifted even in the past five years.

And Holly’s right, we will regret this…

Edmonton's status as Canada's YIMBY capital remains rock solid

We're just folk festing for everything.

Thank you!

2026 Q1 Edmonton building permit report – Jacob Dawang A first look at 2026 building permits through Q1, tracking whether Edmonton will continue the record-breaking momentum of 2025.

I'd be very curious to know how Regina compares to these numbers coming out of Edmonton. jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q1... #yqrcc

1940s-era (aproximately) house with a sign in front that says: Approved Development Permit Residential Use building in the form of a 5 Dwelling Row House with 4 Secondary Sultes

This small, old, rotten single-family home is going to be replaced with 9 brand new ones.

Steps from NAIT, two schools, a hospital, Kingsway mall, LRT, and the restaurants on 118 avenue.

What a huge win for Edmonton!

Great analysis from Jacob (as usual) on the continuing success of Edmonton to create an environment where it’s easy to build the housing people want.

Looking at Edmontons continued success in ramping up missing middle and think about how Halifax could’ve done more

Jacob is extremely good on this beat, and I believe instituting Edmonton reforms in the suburbs of the GTA (Toronto probably needs more ambition) would alleviate pressures on the entire country. High prices in Halifax are partly a result of NIMBYism in Markham.

Edmonton, like Auckland, seems to be proving that in many North American/Australasian contexts if you legalize townhouses in lots of places, they will meet a lot of housing demand. Dispersed rowhomes reduce pressure on how much housing you need to get out of larger apartment buildings

#Edmonton is getting some things completely right, in spite of the loudly right...
#yegcc #yeg

"All this infill is monstrous and ruining our perfect little neighbourhood 😡" you'll hear yelled by the loud NIMBYs online in the comments yet reality and data don't even remotely back them up. Wow, what a concept, the loud minority is telling lies 🤥 on the internet! 🤯
#yeg #infill

Sensible, forward thinking policy works.

Who'd'a thunk it.

yeeessss

“New housing doesn’t help affordability because it all gets put on AirBnB.”

Do people think old buildings are somehow immune to AirBnB? I’d say most AirBnB listings I’ve seen have *not* been new builds.

Land use policy is climate policy.

The Zoning Bylaw Renewal has legalized building rowhomes in central neighbourhoods near transit.

We are building more homes near transit than ever before, enabling families to live in a place where a car is not needed for many trips.

More homes means more housing and transportation choice

Wow. Didn't even make a bedroom cap? Good luck. I assume the end is near for Edmonton

At a certain point here in Toronto we need to be asking ourselves why Edmonton is producing more than 10x as many multiplex units as us per year. (It's zoning and DCs/taxes).

The success of legalizing small-scale density is amazing. We are enabling people to live in the places with better transit, more opportunity - and in the places they want!

GitHub - jdawang/jdawangHelpers Contribute to jdawang/jdawangHelpers development by creating an account on GitHub.

As a technical note, I factored some boilerplate code for data cleaning, etc. into a helper package with the help of Claude, which I would have never done myself. While LLMs are not the answer to everything, they are good at recognizing and refactoring duplicate code.

github.com/jdawang/jdaw...

2026 Q1 Edmonton building permit report – Jacob Dawang A first look at 2026 building permits through Q1, tracking whether Edmonton will continue the record-breaking momentum of 2025.

Rents are coming down. Landlords are offering incentives. Supply is working.

The Zoning Bylaw Renewal could prove to be the single most impactful policy choice by Edmonton council for housing, climate, and finances for years to come.

jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q1-building-permits/

Line chart showing the cumulative share of new homes by distance from the nearest LRT stop, for each year from 2009 to 2026. The 2026 Q1 line sits above and to the left of all previous years, indicating a record-high share of homes built close to transit. 38% of Q1 2026 homes were permitted within 800m of an LRT stop, marked by a dashed vertical line.

We're continuing to build a record proportion of homes near transit. 38% of homes permitted in Q1 2026 were within 800m of an LRT stop, up from 30% for all of 2025, which was already a record.

This will pay dividends for years to come, especially as transit expansion enables more trips car-free.

Table comparing RS Zone building permits by unit count in Q1 2025 vs Q1 2026. 8-unit projects dominate both periods, growing from 40 permits (320 homes) in Q1 2025 to 59 permits (472 homes) in Q1 2026. Total small-scale infill homes rose from 655 to 886 year-over-year.

The 8-unit rowhome is carrying the load. In Q1, 8-unit projects added 472 homes, more than all 5, 6, and 7-unit projects combined.

Earlier this year, Council chose not to cap units at 6. The data keeps proving that was the right call.

Stacked area charts showing homes permitted by project type from 2009–2025, with 2026 projected from Q1 data, broken down by neighbourhood type. The Mature panel shows a dramatic spike starting in 2024, driven by Fiveplex to Eightplex rowhomes, and is projected to reach a new record in 2026. Outside the Henday remains dominated by single detached homes.

2026 is on track to be another record year for infill in mature neighbourhoods, driven once again by the 5–8 unit rowhome.

The myth that everyone wants a detached house with a yard in the suburbs should be dead at this point. When given an affordable option, people choose to live centrally.